


Kissed By Fire

by FalconHorus



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Athosians, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Pegasus Culture, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconHorus/pseuds/FalconHorus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate flies a jumper on a mission around the planet, with Laura as co-pilot, Radek peering over his computerscreen in the back and Elizabeth around for moral support. And in the evening Teyla expects them to be on time for the Remembrance Feast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kissed By Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havocthecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/gifts).



> Havocthecat, I feel I should tell you that you are one of the few authors around I look up to, so when I was given this assignment I was both excited and yet at the same time a little afraid. I hope I did your prompt justice and that you enjoy this day in the life of Kate. It was an honor to write for you.
> 
> Prompt chosen  
> Stargate: Atlantis (Kate Heightmeyer, Laura Cadman) - My favorite femslash pairings for these two are with less rare characters (Heightmeyer/Weir, Cadman/Emmagan, if you're curious) and my favorite het pairings for them are also less rare characters (Heightmeyer/Sheppard and Cadman/Lorne), so you don't have to pair them up with anyone if you don't want to. If you do, great! (That said, I am really, really not a McShep fan, so please don't go there.) My headcanon always included Kate and Laura as kindred spirits who never expected it, so if you'd like to write gen fic about their adventures on Atlantis, please feel free! Or if you'd like to write some kind of an alternate setting AU, feel free also! My main request is to avoid angst and character death. I got enough of that on the show.
> 
> Beta done by the wonderful mathgirl (or known to some perhaps as JT-2).

Kate had never considered herself to be the particularly adventurous type. She was more the ‘ _better safe than sorry_ ’-type. However, she was sure she was no longer entitled to pull the ‘ _not so adventurous_ ’-card since she joined the Atlantis expedition. And she most certainly had never aspired to be a jumper pilot, let alone leave the relatively safe environment of the city. However, sometimes the walls seemed to close in on her and even though Wraith lurked just about everywhere and not all Pegasus natives were as friendly as the Athosians, she was glad she had taken Laura’s offer to learn how to fly a jumper. Being away from the city was always refreshing, and filled her with renewed energy.

“Eyes on the road, Kate!”

She snapped back to reality, finding the jumper had lost some altitude. The ocean below had come dangerously close to their underside. Sure, she wasn’t a spectacularly good pilot, certainly not good enough to be on any of the jumper-teams but she wasn’t bad either. If she had to make a comparison she was sure to find a poorer pilot than herself somewhere in the city.

“How many more times do we have to go round the planet, Radek?”

Kate dared a glance behind her where Radek was gazing over his readings. Elizabeth tapped her shoulder, pointing one finger in front of her indicating she should keep her gaze on the horizon instead. She blushed and turned back to the front.

“Until we can determine where the signal is coming from.”

Laura sighed, tapping some of the controls in front of her. Kate could tell she was bored, and had been from the beginning. She wondered why the lieutenant had volunteered in the first place, other than that she was trying to avoid a confrontation with McKay. From what she had been able to gather from the bits and pieces of gossip she’d picked up on, Rodney had not been pleased with Laura’s April Fool’s joke. The details of the prank were sadly not known to her, and Laura was certainly not telling anything. However, if her love for blowing stuff up had anything to do with it then there was no doubt in Kate’s mind that Rodney would not have been pleased at all. Unless she had programmed his computers to shut down at random. In any case, she’d find out soon enough when Miko came by for her weekly appointment.

“Kate, could you bring up the HUD?”

Bringing up the HUD should come easy since there was a mental link with the ATA-gene but Kate always managed to do it wrong on the first try. The sound of the drone-pods extending alerted her she was doing it wrong yet again. She felt a hand land on her left shoulder, and exactly one squeeze later the HUD flickered into action in front of them. Radek came to stand next to her to have a closer look and pointed at a faint little dot.

“There,” he said as the HUD changed and showed the lay-out of what was below the surface of the ocean.

“What do you think it is?”

The dot grew bigger as they flew closer to its position until they were right on top of it according to the map in front of them. Kate wondered whether they were supposed to dive, something she had not yet attempted, and if she had a say in it, something she wasn’t going to attempt at all, ever.

“We are not sure,” Radek said as he glanced down at his readings, tapping his screen.

“Shouldn’t we inform Colonel Sheppard we found something?”

“Yes,” Radek said from behind her now, having moved back to his seat.

Kate knew that it wouldn’t take long for the colonel to find them, following the directions on his HUD. Rodney had been asking questions right up until the point the jumpers were hovering nose to nose. Another maneuver which unnerved her and wasn’t a fan of doing. Laura had been trying to have her join a formation flight, even though she had protested profusely. Several near collisions later, the idea of having her join an emergency jumper team had been firmly swept off the table for all time, unless times were really – really – really dire. Kate had never seen the list of jumper pilots but she knew there were categories and she was definitely in the _casual flyer_ one.

The colonel promised he’d keep Rodney out of trouble, which Ronon promised to hold him to it, after which they headed for the ocean’s surface. Kate turned the jumper around, making straight for the city, and if all went well she’d be able to park their jumper with only one try. However, she was doubtful she’d be this lucky twice in one week.

“I’ll meet you in the gate area in one hour,” Laura said the moment they were safely back inside the city, and hurried out of the jumper bay.

“And I should head back to the control area to check in with Rodney,” Radek smiled as he too departed.

Kate collected her things from the back of the jumper - her sweater she had ditched several hours earlier, and the cookies she had brought along. Elizabeth was lingering near the rear of the jumper, patiently waiting for her to finish picking up her belongings.

“It looks like we’ll be on time for the Remembrance Feast after all,” Elizabeth smiled.

“Yes,” Kate nodded. “No retaliation for being late.”

Elizabeth chuckled, both remembering the threat Teyla had uttered when she had invited them over for the annual remembering of the dead and lost ones. She had made herself very clear that if either were to forget or were late due to _“work”_ , they’d have a _can of whoop-ass_ coming their way next round of banto’s training. The fact that Teyla had used the very earthly colloquialism had them both giggling, but only after the Athosian had left them be.

\--//--

Kate was relieved to see Teyla awaiting their arrival as they stepped through the gate on New Athos. She hadn’t been off-world much in all her years in the city and it was always a bit tricky how her body would react to the wormhole travel. However, gating in from earth still held the top spot on her _never-doing-that-again_ -list.

“On time,” Laura announced. “And as you can see Kate did not crash our jumper.”

_This time_ , Kate added as an afterthought, but didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t want to cause any unnecessary worry. Not that some people in particular weren’t already worried when she was in the pilot seat of a random jumper, even though they thought they were hiding it well. And she let them.

Teyla inclined her head, smiling, beckoning for them to follow her. Kate followed, Elizabeth falling in step next to her, and Laura hurrying to Teyla’s side. She felt a feather light touch of fingers against her own, and slipped her hand in Elizabeth’s. It was rare for Elizabeth to display this kind of affection in the city, always a bit worried how it might look to the rest of the expedition, but Kate knew for a fact that their relationship was anything but secret. Outside of the city, when no one was watching, those gestures of affection were more outspoken and plentiful.

“We have started preparations for the Remembrance ceremony and the celebrations afterwards. At the fall of evening we will light the fires, and remember the fallen.”

“We wrote the names of our fallen and lost ones on leafs as per your instructions,” Elizabeth gestured towards her backpack. “We all took turns to write a few names. Miko and Katie did most of the work though.”

When Teyla had instructed them on the proceedings, Kate remembered they had spent several hours finding leafs on the mainland; Rodney muttering about more pressing issues and problems. Though when Katie had joined him, the mutterings had ceased and Kate suspected the botanist had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It had made John and Evan snort nonetheless. Whatever it was Katie had whispered to him, they hadn’t seen either of them again until well into the evening when they were almost done sorting all the leafs out so they could start writing the names of the fallen and lost ones the next morning.

“And then we celebrate life,” Laura continued. “Colonel Sheppard warned me about the stout Athosian beverages, though.”

“Like you need the warning,” Elizabeth stated matter-of-factly.

Kate bit her lip, briefly wondering what Laura’s face looked like that very moment but the thought provoked an even greater urge to snort out loud, which she considered not very appropriate at the moment. It was true though, Laura rarely needed warnings when it concerned alcoholic beverages. None of them had ever known her to be drunk, and Kate was pretty sure from the bits and pieces she had heard among the other marines that the lieutenant had quite the reputation among her colleagues. She could drink them all under the table and then some. It was not something she was going to put to the test, because unlike Laura, she had a very love/hate kind of relationship with alcohol. It could really go either way, and keeping the stout Athosian tea in mind, she was sure the alcoholic beverages would surely come with a hangover in the morning.

They arrived in the settlement and were immediately surrounded by half the Athosian population, all wanting to greet their friends from the city of Atlantis. Kate was pulled back and forth, touching more foreheads than she could count until she was pulled from the crowd altogether and found herself standing to the side, Elizabeth and Teyla at either side of her. Laura was bounding around the open area, several Athosian children running behind her. Kate noticed the reason of their joy was the colorful candy Laura had brought along and was handing out to all who wanted some, Athosian adults included.

“Come,” Teyla motioned for them to follow her once more. “We have prepared a tent for you. Laura will have room in Marta’s.”

Kate couldn’t help the smile on her face growing in size at the prospect of having a whole tent for her and Elizabeth alone. The jumper issues forgotten at once, knowing the day couldn’t end on a better note. She turned her head to read Elizabeth’s face. Her curiosity earned her a wink and at once she regretted there was still an entire feast between her and ripping the clothes off of Elizabeth’s body. Whatever the case, evening better not be late.

\--//--

Kate watched the fire burn bright in the center of the village. All of the Athosians were gathered and each of them, she noticed, held several leafs in hand. Their own pile had been added to the Athosian ones so that in every hand around the fire was at least one name of an expedition member whom they had lost over the years. She glanced down at the names she was holding, remembering all their faces.

Markham and Stackhouse. Peter Grodin. Dumais. Hewston. Aiden Ford.

Some she had only known for a brief amount of time, and others long enough to know more about who they were as people. All of them she had known as patients, and some of them had been friends, making their loss a lot more personal.

“Let us cast our loved ones to the fire so they may be carried up to our Ancestors, who will know their names and watch over them, wherever they may be."

“Wherever they may be.”

Kate was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Teyla’s voice, and the murmurs of the Athosians around her. The group moved and she followed, casting their leafs into the fire. The ashes rose up and were carried away by a light breeze she hadn’t even noticed was blowing in from the forest. Kate watched as she stepped back, allowing others to reach the fire.

“I have one more.”

Kate turned, Elizabeth handing her a smaller leaf. The name written down in Elizabeth’s elegant handwriting brought tears to her eyes.

“I know it wasn’t easy for you not being able to attend her funeral, so maybe this way you can say goodbye and remember her.”

Kate nodded, unable to voice any words. Her grandmother had passed away and the news had reached her far too late to attend any sort of memorial service. Of the few moments she absolutely hated being in Atlantis, not being able to be with her family when such things happened was high on the list. She had been angry, and sad, and Elizabeth had done her best to comfort her when she had learned of the passing but it did more harm than good. It cemented the fact she was millions of light years away from her family and couldn’t just hop through the stargate at will to be with them at any given moment. This was the way of the expedition. She had ignored it for as long as possible, but learned that it would always come back to bite you.

She moved back towards the fire, glanced down at the leaf in her hand before casting it into the flames. It was devoured and sent up in a puff of smoke, into the wind.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, blinking tears away.

“And now we feast?”

The sound of Laura’s voice brought a smile back to her lips. If ever there was a more impatient woman. She could hear the amusement in Teyla’s voice as she confirmed to Laura that the ceremony was over, and dinner would be served soon. The catch of the day already roasting over another fire, and to Kate’s relief it didn’t look like anything that had been described in grand detail by Jennifer Keller, who had had the misfortune of getting chased by wildlings one unfortunate mission ago. Whatever they said, it never tasted like chicken.

\--//--

As the evening drew to a close, the settlement quieted down for the night, or whatever few moments of darkness remained before sunrise, and both Kate and Elizabeth followed suit. A dark orange glow was already visible in the sky, but the trees blocked any view to what was without a doubt a spectacular rising sun. Kate was disappointed not being able to see the actual sunrise, and Elizabeth promised she’d find a nice friendly planet for her next time where they could watch all the sunrises she ever wanted to see. Perhaps they could keep score of which ones were the most beautiful. However, Kate already knew which one was the most beautiful. There was no sunrise more beautiful than the ones she could share with Elizabeth at her side.

“So, tell me again why you switched hair color?”

Kate rolled her eyes as Elizabeth pulled her into their tent.

“Kissed by fire, they say, brings luck in life and love.”

Kate remembered the line vaguely from some book she had started reading.

“And here I thought you already were the luckiest woman alive.”

Elizabeth sent her a mock glare.

“I am,” Kate grinned. “But it can’t hurt to add more to be sure, can it?”

Elizabeth’s laughter filled the tent, music to Kate’s ears.


End file.
